Sonia Gandhi encourages Cong MPs to attack BJP

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday met a group of party MPs and agreed with their view that the party should not be defensive about the BJP's demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation over the government auditors' report on coal allocation, one of the MPs said.

Gandhi agreed that the Congress should expose the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) "obstructionist" parliamentary tactics, said the MP, demanding that he not be named.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Reuters

The group, which had mainly young Congress MPs, met Gandhi soon after the Lok Sabha witnessed its first adjournment over the BJP's demand and conveyed their anguish at repeated stalling of parliament's proceedings over the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report.

"We met her to convey our viewpoint about how parliament is functioning. We told her that BJP was doing a disservice which should be taken to people," the party MP said later.

Gandhi nodded in agreement with what they told her, the MP said.

The MPs told Gandhi that the BJP's tactics can lead to "chaotic situation" and all its demands cannot be accepted. They said situation had to be viewed for the "country as a whole" and not from perspective of a party.

The MPs said they wanted a discussion in parliament on the CAG report.